1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to parallel processing and, more specifically, to a technique for counting values in a register.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional computer systems oftentimes have to count the number of bits within a register that are set to one. Such an operation is known in the art as a “population count” operation. A fixed-function unit typically performs a population count operation as part of a larger computation. For example, a Hamming distance computation could rely on a fixed-function unit to perform population count operations. The speed of such computations is limited by the speed with which the population count operation can be performed. Conventional population count operations are suitable for small populations, but do not scale well to larger populations.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an improved technique for counting larger populations of elements.